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Donald Trump’s National Security Speech Tells us not to Throw Caution to the Wind

On June 13, Donald Trump gave a speech in Manchester, New Hampshire that was basically a list of talking points on national security that he read from a teleprompter. Trump’s speech came the day after the horrific mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida that killed 50 people and injured 53.

Not surprisingly, Donald Trump took advantage of the worst mass shooting in America’s history to frame his speech around immigration and national security. The speech was full of political diatribe, exaggerations, fear mongering and his habitual demonization of Pres. Obama.

A quick evaluation of the transcript of Trump’s speech shows that it was mostly hypocritical and contradictory to his previous campaign comments. To be more specific, his speech can be broken down into six categories (hypocrisy, exaggerations, contradictions, fear mongering, undermining Pres. Obama and his administration, and using racist dog whistle codes) as shown below.

Hypocrisy

President Obama must release the full and complete immigration histories of all individuals implicated in terrorist activity of any kind since 9/11.

Here Donald Trump is asking the president to release documents when he himself stubbornly refuses to release his tax returns. This is a non-mandatory requirement that all presidential candidates have honored.

I want us all to work together, including in partnership with our Muslim communities. But Muslim communities must cooperate with law enforcement and turn in the people who they know are bad – and they do know where they are.

Trump has alienated the entire Muslim religion by calling for Muslims to be banned from entering the US. You can’t use this kind of rhetoric and then say you want to work together in partnership with Muslim communities – this does not square up with what he thinks and what he says.

America must unite the whole civilized world in the fight against Islamic terrorism, just like we did against communism in the Cold War.

This is another common hypocrisy of Trump. Throughout his campaign, he has made divisive and insulting comments about individuals and certain groups of people like Mexican people, Muslims, New Mexico Gov. Susan Martinez, and Judge Gonzalo Curiel.

Ask yourself, who is really the friend of women and the LGBT community, Donald Trump with his actions, or Hillary Clinton with her words? Clinton wants to allow radical Islamic terrorist the poor into our country – they enslave women, and murder case.

In this statement, Trump is trying to make himself appear to be more of a friend to LGBT than Hillary Clinton is. This is not exactly true though as the book, Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success, Michael D’Antonio states, “Over the years Trump has been opposed to gay marriage and in favor of gays serving in the military.”

Exaggerations

We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer.

Altogether, under the Clinton plan, you’d be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of their children.

It is obvious that Donald Trump does not care about the details or facts, two things that are required for the president to make good decisions. Aaron James in his book, Assholes: A Theory of Donald Trump, he states,

Trump isn’t necessarily good with facts (see conspiracy theories, Obama’s place of birth, “celebrating” Muslims in Jersey City). To Bill O’Reilly, when asked about plainly false figures concerning blacks and homicides, he replied, “Bill, for my going to check every statistic?” And he plainly stated to Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, “All I know is what’s on the Internet.” Yet even fear he latches on to the bad information. For his driving concern is not responding to reality but winning, in a winning performance.

Contradictions

What I want is common sense. I want a mainstream immigration policy that promotes American values.

This statement is antithetical to what he says in his campaign rallies. His mantra to build a wall and let Mexico pay for it hardly sounds like a common sense idea.

America will be a tolerant and open society.

This statement is a classic Trump contradiction because he has demonstrated a lack of tolerance repeatedly. He simply does not tolerate anyone who attacks him as he often said, “if you attack me I will attack back.”

Referring to Hillary Clinton, he said,

Even her former Secret Service Agent, who has seen her under pressure and in times of stress, has stated that she lacks the temperament and integrity to be president.

Trump himself has been accused of lacking temperament and integrity. To bring this up as an attack against Hillary Clinton makes no sense when he has demonstrated explicitly these same problems.

Fear mongering

We are importing Radical Islamic Terrorism into the West through a failed immigration system — and through an intelligence community held back by our president.

Even our own FBI Director has admitted that we cannot effectively check the backgrounds of the people we are letting into America.

All of the September 11th hijackers were issued visas.

Large numbers of Somali refugees in Minnesota have tried to join ISIS.

The Boston Bombers came here through political asylum.

The male shooter in San Bernardino – again, whose name I won’t mention — was the child of immigrants from Pakistan, and he brought his wife – the other terrorist – from Saudi Arabia, through another one of our easily exploited visa programs.

Immigration from Afghanistan into the United States has increased nearly five-fold in just one year. According to Pew Research, 99% of people in Afghanistan support oppressive Sharia Law.

The above comments point to Trump using the immigration policy to promote fear in the minds of the American people. There is no doubt that America’s immigration policies are broken and needs to be overhauled. Immigration issue is a complex political issue that has failed to be resolved because of partisan politics.

Undermining and demonizing Pres. Obama

We have an incompetent administration, and if I am not elected President, that will not change over the next four years — but it must change, and it must change now.

Here Trump continues to show his content and disrespect to Pres. Obama. When Pres. Bush made poor decisions with respect to the near collapse of the economy, the catastrophic Katrina hurricane, and the Iraq war, he did not say Pres. Bush’s administration was incompetent.

We are importing Radical Islamic Terrorism into the West through a failed immigration system — and through an intelligence community held back by our president.

Here again he demonizes the president by making false comments. It is not clear exactly what he means by an “intelligence community held back by our president.”

The Obama Administration, with the support of Hillary Clinton and others, has also damaged our security by restraining our intelligence-gathering and failing to support law enforcement. They have put political correctness above common sense, above your safety, and above all else.

The problem with this statement is that it gives no examples and fall short on specifics. It also propagandize present Obama’s administration with comments like “restraining our intelligence gathering and failure to support law enforcement.”

Nearly a year ago, the Senate Subcommittee asked President Obama’s Departments of Justice, State and Homeland Security to provide the immigration history of all terrorists inside the United States.

Another attempt to use propaganda to demonize the president. The president has no legal or constitutional authority to release classified information to a Senate subcommittee. Trump does not even identify which subcommittee he is talking about.

Truly, our President doesn’t know what he is doing. He has failed us, and failed us badly, and under his leadership, this situation will not get any better — it will only get worse.

It is one thing to be critical of Pres. Obama, but when statements like this are made without any specific examples it smacks of contempt, disrespect, and racism that frequently reflected in his speeches.

We’ve tried it President Obama’s way. He gave the world his apology tour, we got ISIS, and many other problems, in return.

Again, another broad generalization laced with propaganda to demonize the president. Whatever apology the president has made to anyone it is done with sincerity and a desire to reconcile past differences and conflicts. For Donald Trump to say that the president making these apologies has resulted in ISIS is very unfortunate and disturbing.

Using Racist Dog Whistle

I refuse to be politically correct.

When Donald Trump says this he is championing what conservatives and racists see as a liberal effort to restrict their freedom of speech to say anything even if it insensitive to minorities and women. John K. Wilson in his book, The Myth of Political Correctness, states,

The critics of political correctness invert reality by declaring themselves oppressed by feminists, and minorities.

This is what Trump is trying to do muzzle those who are critical about insensitive comments that people like himself makes.

I will do the right thing–I want to straighten things out and to Make America Great Again.

Here Trump is implying that America was once great but not anymore. Apparently, America stopped being great when present Obama was elected the first black president. This was the catalyst for his birther conspiracy theory.

The days of deadly ignorance will end, and they will end soon.

This comment aimed at Pres. Obama and conjures up an old stereotype that blacks are ignorant.

If there is any meaningful conclusion that can be drawn from Trump’s national security speech it is that it lacks coherent and pragmatic solutions for dealing with complex political problems. As a business entrepreneur, Trump should realize that you cannot solve problems by simply identifying them in a loosely. His business should have made him aware that solving complex problems requires critical evaluation and understanding of the nature of these problems. Terrorism, immigration, and national security issues are complex issues that experience politicians, political leaders, diplomats, and head of states have struggled with.

Only a person suffering from the illusion of grandeur and who has no political experience could think he or she can fix these problems instantly by waving a magic wand. Trumps narcissistic, egotistic, and arrogant attitude have made him believe he can say the most outrageous things without any reprimand. He got away with birtherism and the media has been soft with him so he has every reason to believe he is invincible.

If there is any good thing that can be said about Donald Trump it is that he has given Americans enough information about his temperament and attitude. Information about flaws that should disqualify any presidential candidate or render them ineffective in performing presidential duties. Therefore, Americans should not be deceived by Trump’s tough talk about resolving problems of terrorism, immigration, and other political issues. This is not the time to throw caution to the wind and elect a political neophyte.